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One.
Wei Ying's sword is heavier than it looks. On the surface it is unremarkable, a branch roughly hewn and hollowed out for the scabbard, embellished with a few simple iron ornaments. You could hide it in plain sight because nobody would take a second look at it.
You couldn't hide Wei Ying like that. Wei Ying is the sun, and you can't hide the sun even if you tried to cover him with the unremarkable.
But if the Wen Sect can't hide Wei Ying, then where is he? The dregs of the Wen Sect, squirming cockroaches that cower at his feet in terror, claim that Wei Ying was thrown into the darkness of the unmarked mass graves and cursed lands of the Yiling Burial Mounds three months ago. Lan Zhan's grip on the sword tightens. He refuses to believe them.
(But you see, that's the only way to hide the sun - you kill its light.)
Lan Zhan refuses to believe until he next sees Wei Ying, and Wei Ying's smile is a yawning black hole into endless night.
Two.
If someone were to ask him what regret feels like, he would tell them this:
It tastes like blood in your mouth.
It smells like ash in the air.
It sounds like a hundred thousand men screaming in bloodlust and madness, but the only sound that reaches you is his cry of anguish as he watches his beloved sister die.
It looks like him smiling gently up at you one last time, the shape of his lips forming the words, "Lan Zhan, let go."
It feels like your hand, slippery with blood, closing on thin air.
Three.
"Have you considered changing his name?" his brother asks.
It's done often enough, after a great misfortune has befallen a child; an illness or tragedy that they have somehow managed to survive. Change their name to change their fortune, and leave the bad luck from their old life behind. A-Yuan is too young to know the difference as long as it still sounds the same. Nobody will question it, although it may seem strange that the solitary and quiet Hanguang-jun has somehow acquired a son.
Lan Zhan nods, and his brother seems relieved that he has accepted his suggestion.
"What about his courtesy name? Do you have anything in mind?"
Lan Zhan turns to look at A-Yuan giggling and playing with the rabbits his brother has brought into the cave where he is supposed to reflect on his transgressions in solitude. Lan Qiren will have harsh words for his brother if he finds out, but apparently his brother thinks that bringing the rabbits and A-Yuan to visit him every few days will earn his forgiveness.
(Lan Zhan will forgive him eventually, because his brother is family. But he will not forget that his brother stood by and let them execute what was left of the innocent Wens - Wei Ying's adopted family. He will not forget the moment that he lost the respect he'd once held for his brother.)
Traditionally, the Lan clan's courtesy names reflect the ideals of their teachings - to leave behind the entanglements of the mundane and strive for virtue and enlightenment.
"Sī. Zhuī." Remembrance. Longing. He does not need to spell out who he longs for, or who haunts his memories.
His brother looks at him with sorrow and inclines his head in sympathy for his grief. Bored of playing with the rabbits, A-Yuan wanders towards them and clambers into Lan Zhan's lap; this child has broken his walls down as easily as Wei Ying did. His back aches with his injuries but he doesn't let it show.
"Ji-gege, why do you have to stay inside here all the time? It's nice and sunny outside!" A-Yuan says.
"I am not allowed to leave."
A-Yuan pouts but leans his head on Lan Zhan's shoulder. "Where is Xian-gege? I miss him."
Lan Xichen looks worried, as if he can stop the child from accidentally ripping open Lan Zhan's raw wounds. Lan Zhan shakes his head quietly and takes A-Yuan's hands in his. They are so small, and too cold; the cave isn't the place for a child so young, and he's only just recovered from a high fever. This child has been surrounded by death all his young life, and Lan Zhan won't let it cast its shadow on him or his memories, not if he can help it, but he's not good with white lies.
"Wei Ying didn't want to leave either," he says quietly, and holds A-Yuan a little tighter - his one link left to Wei Ying, proof that he lived and laughed, and was beautiful and real. That someone saw the good in him and loved him too.
"I miss him, too."
Four.
"Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan! Wake up, it's just a dream."
He surfaces, from darkness into the warm light of a single candle. The dream is already fading, leaving a murky jumble of emotions - sorrow, pain, loss.
"Normally, I'd hope that you were dreaming about me, but..." Wei Ying flashes an impish grin at him.
I was, Lan Zhan wants to say. I dreamt that you never came back.
Instead, he says, "I'm fine. Put out the light."
"If you're sure," Wei Ying says.
He blows out the candle and kisses Lan Zhan on the lips, lingering in a way that suggests that they could take it further if Lan Zhan wanted to, and makes a soft sound of pleased surprise when Lan Zhan puts his hands around him and pulls him down. He needs this now - the feeling of Wei Ying's weight on him, of Wei Ying's pulse against his lips, of Wei Ying murmuring that he loves him while they bring each other to completion.
After that, as they lie sated with their arms around each other, Lan Zhan thinks he understands why he dreamt what he did.
There is a glint of silver in Wei Ying's hair, catching the moonlight.
Five.
They knew it was coming. They had many years to prepare themselves - decades, even.
(How do you prepare for loss like this?)
Wei Ying has no golden core. He can use talismans and his unique cultivation method to defend himself and subdue spirits on night-hunts, but even if he has gained better control over the resentful spiritual energy he channels, the most that he can hope to achieve is not let it corrupt him. Resentment is a yin force while a person's lifeforce and inherent spiritual energy is a yang force, and the two will always be at odds with each other.
With the level of cultivation Lan Zhan has achieved, they have always known that Lan Zhan would outlive him; powerful cultivators can live for hundreds of years, while Wei Ying is only mortal. At the age of eighty, Lan Zhan looks like he is in his late thirties. But Wei Ying has refused to let him give him regular transfusions of spiritual energy and so that's that.
Wei Ying has plenty of time to say goodbye this time. Nie Huaisang passed a year before, but his daughter comes to pay her respects, followed by Lan Xichen and the younger Lans who were close to Wei Ying.
Jiang Cheng comes and just sits there by Wei Ying's bedside, struggling with feelings he doesn't know how to put into words. "Jie probably has a pot of lotus root and pork rib soup waiting for you on the other side," he finally says.
"And I'll have it all to myself for a long while yet," Wei Ying says with a laugh.
Jin Ling comes in and mumbles something along the lines of "thank you for everything, I guess", and Wei Ying laughs some more.
"You and Sizhui will have to take care of each other. And take care of your uncle for me, I know he will blame himself for this."
After Jin Ling leaves, Wen Ning comes in, sad but serene. "You don't have to worry about a thing, Master Wei. I'll take care of them. Tell my sister that I miss her."
Sizhui is the last visitor, too overcome with grief to do more than hug his father tightly. Wei Ying murmurs something to him, words not for Lan Zhan's ears.
When they are all gone, Lan Zhan closes the door and plays the qin for his husband one last time. At the end of the song, Wei Ying's eyes are closed, and Lan Zhan has a moment of panic before he notices the steady rise and fall of his chest.
"Thank you," Wei Ying says softly. "I'm sorry that I could not play the flute to go with your qin."
"There's nothing to be sorry about."
"If you'll excuse me, I don't think I'll come back as a ghost to haunt you," Wei Ying says, then cracks one eye open to peer at him. "Do I need to come back to haunt you?"
"No," Lan Zhan replies, taking Wei Ying's frail hand in his. They sit there like this for a long time, Wei Ying's breaths growing shallower and slower.
"Lan Zhan, say something. It's too quiet. Let me hear your voice."
But what can he say? What words can give voice to the terrible ache in his chest?
"Wei Ying."
"I'm here," Wei Ying replies with a smile, and those are his last words.
Sizhui comes in a few minutes later. "Hanguang-jun?...Father?"
Lan Zhan doesn't reply. His nightfall at the end of the single-log bridge is still further yet, and the rest of the journey is one he will have to make alone.
He does not play his qin again.
+ One.
How long has he slept here? His bones have turned to stone and his heart is ice.
He came here a few years after Wei Ying passed on, for some peace and quiet, and accidentally stayed in here for centuries.
He told them he needed to be alone for a while, but no one has come looking, not even Sizhui or his brother. They do not dare to find out what happens to someone who has lost the matching piece to their soul - not through any evil spell or curse, but because that is the way things go.
A loud splash and a yelp shatters the silence.
"Crap, there goes my phone. What is this place?" The voice is achingly familiar.
Lan Yi's qin should send out a blast if the intruder does not bear the forehead ribbon of the Gusu-Lan Clan's inner circle, but nothing happens.
"Is that a statue or a person?" he hears the intruder mutter, and the splashing gets louder as the intruder approaches. "Hello?"
He knows that voice. Wei Ying.
Lan Zhan opens his eyes.